


Reset

by Onlymystory



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Happy Ending, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:04:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4376567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onlymystory/pseuds/Onlymystory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve's soulmate timer syncs with Bucky's on his 18th birthday, its the happiest he's ever been. 70 some years and the Avengers later, when the light's been faded on his wrist for decades, the timer starts again. <br/>Steve doesn't know who caused his timer to reset. He hates them all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So a prompt on soulmate timers and Steve/Bucky popped up on tumblr and my brain hasn't been able to let go. And thus you have this.   
> While not a fic that really investigates depression too much (I intend this to be more happy than angsty), I am still touching on Steve's depression and suicidal tendencies that have shown up in the MCU. It's a character choice I find fascinating and very real in canon and I didn't think it worked to just ignore it in a soulmate fic. I don't feel its enough for an official warning, but enough to note in case you're particularly sensitive.

“Told ya punk,” says Bucky with a grin the day Steve turns 18 and his soulmate timer syncs up with Bucky’s, the numbers speeding down until they blink at zero. The faint red and blue aura around both of their timers--the colors indicating only to each other that this is the right person and neither of them suddenly synced up to the newsie on the corner or someone else in the vicinity--shimmers a little.

Steve breathes a sigh of relief. He knew Bucky was his soulmate, has known for ages, but he’d always been terrified that fate would decide differently. And what was he to do with someone else? Someone he’d never be able to love the way he loves James Barnes. “Jerk,” he responds, attempting for light and the word coming out shaky.

The smile on Bucky’s face is just this side of relieved, telling Steve they’d shared the same fear. It gives Steve the courage to lean in and kiss Bucky.

They’ve kissed before. A few were just curiosity, not wanting to be terrible at it before they realized it was okay as long as they were terrible together. A few more when one or both would go out and slip a few drinks. The worst kisses have been over the last year. They’d made a pact not to do anything, trying to preemptively break up so to speak, just in case Steve’s birthday brought the worst sort of news.

But its just been the two of them for so long and love runs deep. Those stolen kisses had too much longing, too much desperation, and not nearly enough time.

Not this time. This time around, as Steve tugs at Bucky’s hair and the nape of his neck and pulls him closer, as Bucky tightens his hold and practically wraps his entire self around Steve’s tiny frame, it all works like it should. There’s no desperation or time limits. They have all the time in the world now and Steve kisses possessively, telling the world that Bucky is his, back the fuck off. Bucky sinks into the kiss, like he’s home.

It’s one of Steve’s favorite things; the way Bucky will fight tooth and nail to keep him safe but needs a scrawny kid from Brooklyn to make him feel the same way. He’d go to hell and back for Bucky and the very idea that anyone else could have been his soulmate seems laughable now.

“We’re in public, Steve,” manages Bucky around a moan, just as Steve starts to seriously consider climbing Bucky like a tree. Technically they’re in an alleyway, out of sight of passersby, but the point stands. Soulmate timers still tend to be between a man and a woman and the few that aren’t are kept quiet. A messy world but one Steve can deal with if it gives him Bucky.

“You’re the dumbass who wanted to get a treat for my birthday,” retorts Steve. “Insisting we had to celebrate all proper and shit.”

“Fuck,” exclaims Bucky as Steve bites possessively at his neck. “I’m an idiot, alright, can we please go home now?”

It’s not that Steve can’t see the benefit in that, he can, especially since even their terrible apartment and bed that’s probably going to break within a week hold promise, but Bucky’s eyes are dark with want and it takes him an extra minute to settle himself into a state that can make it the two blocks home.

~

Steve insists on a full 24 hour celebration of his birthday. If the majority of that time is spent in bed, well...his birthday’s on the 4th of July. Everyone knows that’s celebrated with a few bangs.

~

Life is perfect until it’s not. Oh they’re still dirt poor, scraping by on what few jobs Steve has the energy for and whatever else Bucky can manage. But they have each other. The Depression ends and suddenly the world is at war and even if the US isn’t in it yet, Steve knows they will be. The moment Bucky comes home in uniform is the day Steve learns what fear really is.

That silly thing he’d felt before their timers linked, when he thought maybe Bucky wasn’t really his, that’s nothing. The overthinking of a child he tells himself. This. This is like ice in his heart. Steve’s not one for premonitions, fuck fate, he says quite regularly, but this is different. His very bones seem to chill and while Bucky’s leaning against the door jamb, saying something teasing about a man in uniform, Steve sees nothing but blood and pain and loss, sees only the end of everything he loves.

“Steve,” says Bucky, catching on to Steve’s less than desired reaction. “Steve, what the hell?”

“Don’t die,” chokes out Steve.

“What? I’m not going to…”

“Don’t!” Steve clutches at the lapels of the uniform, desperate like he’s never been. “Promise me no matter what, you’ll come back to me. I won’t fucking lose you.”  
Bucky kisses him tenderly, his eyes soft as he gazes at Steve. “I promise, punk. Til the end of the line remember? I ain’t gonna fucking forget that.”

It’s not enough, thinks Steve for a moment, not nearly. He moves on soon enough though, because there is something about a man in uniform after all. Besides, if the government is going to steal his fucking soulmate, he’s going to make the most of the time they’ve got.

~

 

A couple weeks later Bucky’s gone and then everything’s different.

They won’t let him be a soldier on his own and that’s the only way to get to Bucky. To be with him for more than the occasional leave. So Steve says yes to tests and experiments and he changes a lot. But he’s still Bucky’s punk, still with him until the end of the line.

Eventually it’s all worth it, because Steve and Bucky are together again. Peggy runs the world and the Howling Commandos do her bidding and it’s all worth it.

Even when he has to go rescue Bucky, when he’s missing and kidnapped and suffering, Steve’s heart aches but he’s determined. Bucky is his and he is Bucky’s. Always.

Until in a flash, a blink of an eye so quick Steve doesn’t even get out an “I love you”, Bucky’s gone and the world ceases to have meaning.

His soulmate timer still glows red and blue, causing Steve to have hope for a long time, until most of the red fades. He realizes then that until he dies or stops loving Bucky, that light will stay and Steve hopes the former comes quickly. It’s an easy decision to steer the plane into the ocean. Steve suspects Peggy knows how easy it is, even if he does hate to leave her, the woman who understood him best, second only to Bucky in his life. But she’s not Bucky, can’t be, and while Steve would have died for Bucky a thousand times over, he doesn’t know how to live without him either.

So he drops into the ocean and the light on his wrist fades as he does, until the last thing Steve sees before his world goes black is nothing but the faintest smudge of blue.

~

Almost 70 years later Steve wakes up in a nondescript room. His mind catalogues the supposed to be and the reality very quickly. It’s designed like a military hospital room, there’s a baseball game playing on the radio, and a nurse enters the room dressed like the girls he met in the war. That’s the supposed to be.

The reality is that the “nurse’s” shoes aren’t built for being on her feet, the game is one that he attended before the US got into the war and things are drastically different if a military hospital can afford to give an entire room to one man.

So Steve fights and he runs and he only gets so far before a man stops him, a man who seems to know him and talks about Stark and might have some answers in this world 70 years away from his own. Steve is inclined to fight more, to try and escape again--he beat the Red Skull, he can probably beat these soldiers--and then he looks at his wrist. There’s nothing there anymore, just a faint smudge where light and numbers used to be, reminding Steve that he’s still alone in this world.

“Are you okay?” asks the man.

“Fine,” answers Steve, though he’s anything but.

~

He fights the Chitauri with the Avengers and starts to learn to exist again. Living seems too demanding, to do that would require Bucky, would require a world familiar to Steve and that seems impossible here.

He researches the last century as much as possible, learning all he can, becoming acclimated. Steve learns that soulmates matter more now, that same sex soulmates are allowed to be public, even if they’re still judged by some. He learns that new friendships can start to fill some of the void until there’s just a cold, dark core in his heart, the emptiness no one else will ever be able to feel.

Steve discovers that the history books messed up, that they tell a story of him and Peggy as soulmates. In one of her coherent moments, Peggy tells him about Angie, about the love she found that was bright and all-consuming as she could have ever hoped. He gets it then, knows she would have had to deal with the same hate that he and Bucky did and he casts no blame on her for letting the fairytale of the two of them become the public story.

He’s not whole, never will be, but he’s managing.

Nine months after his first battle with the Avengers, after they’ve all moved into the Tower at Tony’s coercing, they’re all watching a movie together. It’s Star Wars--an immediate favorite of Steve’s--and one that he’s rewatched 4 times now because Tony always falls for it when he pretends to forget which one it is.

Steve’s stretched out on the couch, leaning his back against Thor and feeling momentarily content.

“Alright who’s phone is on?” demands Tony when a light flashes on in the room. It’s his one rule about movie night--well that and endless buckets of popcorn--that all phones be in the other room so they can watch in his properly darkened theater.

There’s a general chorus of “not mine asshole” when Bruce’s voice sounds a little shakier than it should. “Uh, Steve?”

“My phone’s in my room,” replies Steve. That one lecture was enough.

“Not your phone man,” says Barton and Steve turns his head to see that the timer on his wrist is lit up, numbers counting down.

Steve shakes his head, sitting up and staring in bewilderment. “What’s it doing?” The numbers have a countdown for a day just over fifteen months away, a day that means nothing to him.

“Looks like you got a new soulmate,” says Tony casually.

Pepper pats his free hand. “Perhaps with Peggy in her last days, fate decided you deserved to be happy,” she says, her voice sounding like she thinks the universe is being incredibly sweet.

“I don’t want a new soulmate.” Steve knows he sounds confused, but he can’t help himself. Why would fate do this to him? Think that he needs someone new, someone who has barely 18 years of experience. He can’t possibly be expected to move on to someone with whom he has nothing in common.

Bruce’s voice is kind, too damn kind when he says “I think Peggy would want to see you happy, Steve. It’s okay.”

“It’s not fucking okay!” snarls Steve, his tone fire and ice at the same time. “Peggy wasn’t my damn soulmate. Bu…” and he can’t finish the name as tears fill his eyes. “He...my soulmate...he died at the bottom of a ravine in Germany. I don’t want a new fucking soulmate.”

Barton drops down from his perch, walks out of the room with only a brief squeeze of Steve’s shoulder, the one person who would understand his pain. The others sit in silent shock, adjusting to which part of his outburst Steve doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He finally shoves himself off the couch. The idea of being around people is too much, he just needs to disappear and be alone for a while.

There’s someone out there now, Steve thinks. Someone who will probably be able to love him, to care for him. Someone who will be eagerly inspecting the wrist of those they meet in fifteen months, excited about who their soulmate is. A someone who could be male or female. They’re probably great, muses Steve, someone who will get him, really get him, not the way the Avengers care but still get shocked at how often he swears.

Bucky did always say Steve would fit better in the Navy with his mouth.

Steve sags against the door once he’s in his room, biting at his knuckles, and thinking about how somewhere in the world, some man or woman is thinking about him, wondering about their soulmate.

Steve’s never hated anyone more.

~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upped the chapter count to 4. I realized I need a chapter to get Bucky back and then I need a chapter of sappy delicious soulmate romance. Well and Steve/Bucky tormenting Tony by having sex all over the Tower.

When Fury calls Natasha back to work in D.C. and sends Clint out on a mission a couple months after the Chitauri battle, then invites Steve to join them at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, it doesn’t take much thought for Steve to say yes.

He’s restless in New York, no motivation to move on with his life.

“You sure you’ll be happy in D.C. man?” asks Clint as they’re both packing. “Seems more corrupt than your usual scene.”

“I’m not that innocent,” returns Steve.

Clint chuckles. “Yes, I’m aware and now I need you to listen to Britney Spears. Put her on the list. Just because you’re a sarcastic shithead doesn’t mean you don’t look for the good in people. And look out for the people who are good.”

“Could say the same about you. Natasha’s not the only agent you turned.”

“Nope.” They continue moving around in silence. Clint’s mostly packing weapons, Steve’s gathering some of the entertainment on his catch up list. He’s ready to take a break and order a few pizzas when Clint speaks up again.

“It’s not good to run away, Cap.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. needs me. I’m doing my duty, not running away.”

“You can do your job and still run. I’m not saying I don’t get it. Believe me, those first couple weeks that I disappeared...it was all about not dealing with the loss of Phil. It tears me up inside to think that I’ve lost my soulmate.”

“What’s your point?” Steve doesn’t even care that he sounds angry.

“My point is that I still have Fury and Natasha and a job that means something to me. I have people and I have purpose.” Clint forces Steve to look at him, closer than the man usually tends to get to people. “It’d almost make sense if you were living in the past but you’re not. Some days, I’m not even sure if you’re living.”

Steve lowers himself onto the couch, sighing heavily. “I’m not sure I know how. It’s hard enough just to get dressed in the morning. How am I supposed to find happiness?”

Clint shakes his head. “Start with purpose. Give yourself permission to find something to care about again. A reason to get up each day.”

“You think that will help?” asks Steve, genuinely hoping Clint’s right.

“I really do,” answers Barton. “Oh, and Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Talk to a professional. There might be some medications that could help too.”

Steve nods, silently promising himself that he will follow up. Maybe a purpose could help him forget about his timer resetting, and this future soulmate.

~

Being in D.C. helps. Steve has command of a squadron again and it’s not quite the same as the Howling Commandos, who were never really there to respect an icon, but to give him the same shit that Bucky always did, but it’s better.

He and Natasha are better friends, getting to know each other.

Sometimes he goes for drinks with some of the other agents. Sometimes he still fights to get out of bed.

The timer steadily counts down.

~

Steve spends his first few hours after he meets Sam the happiest he’s been in years. The Avengers have been through their share of trauma and Steve would never negate any one’s personal suffering. But for all that Banner has an empathy for anger, Barton for loss, and Natasha for the simultaneous craving for order and the need to create chaos, Sam’s the first person Steve’s met since the war that understands being a soldier. More importantly, he understands what it is to be a soldier of war without marching orders.

Sam gives Steve someone to talk to and he seems to inherently understand the depression. He’s just there. A sort of comfort Steve didn’t know he needed until it was already there.

Later, as he accompanies Sam to the VA Hospital and visits with some of the soldiers, Steve’s struck with a feeling of contentment.

Maybe he won’t ever truly be happy without Bucky, but he could be something more than miserable.

The feeling’s followed by a deep, unsettling panic as Steve shoves his jacket sleeve up to check his arm. He can’t feel this way because Sam’s the reason his timer started counting down again. He just can’t. Steve breathes an audible sigh of relief that it’s still counting, though the fact that he’s only days away from the end makes him nervous. Everyone knows you can meet your soulmate early, so it’s not like Steve can ignore any chance encounter. Anyone could speed up the timer.

The idea that this new soulmate is so near shakes him up, enough that he takes a flight back to New York City, returning to his old wing in Avengers Tower, in hopes that the familiarity will ground him.

“Sonuvabitch!” snarls Steve at the coffee pot a few moments later when the damn thing won’t brew a cup of coffee. He finally got used to this century’s new-fangled gadgets, even accepted the idea of this single-serve cup--Bruce rails against its anti-environmental existence, but sometimes the one cup is all that’s needed--and yet now, when he just needs something to settle him, the damn thing won’t work.

“Uh, Cap, you alright there?” Tony strolls in, pulling open the fridge to grab a beer, a choice that makes much more sense at four in the afternoon.

“The damn coffee maker won’t turn on,” he snaps.

Tony shuffles around him to take a look. “You don’t have the lid all the way on the water,” explains Tony. “There’s a sensor that keeps it from starting until all the pieces are locked in place.” He adjusts it as he’s talking, pressing the brew button, and digging through the fridge for the flavored creamer that Steve likes.

“So what’s got you so upset? Because you tend to have trouble with 21st century machines on a regular basis but they’ve never gotten you this frustrated before.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” replies Steve, staring at the coffee and wanting it to brew faster. He used the upstairs kitchen for a reason. Maybe he should get a coffee maker for his room. And a mini-fridge.

“How would you know?” snaps Tony. “I realize the media would say differently, but I do have a heart.”

Steve huffs, simultaneously annoyed and chastised. “I made a new friend,” he offers. “And it was nice to talk to Sam. He understands a lot. But then I got worried that those feelings meant Sam was supposed to be my soulmate and I don’t want the first decent fucking person I’ve met since the Avengers to be my fucking soulmate because I had a soulmate and he’s dead and I couldn’t be friends with Sam if he was. He’s not but that means there’s still someone else out there and I’m going to have to be an asshole to them because I won’t fall in love again. I fucking can’t.”

Tony doesn’t speak for a minute, handing Steve his coffee and watching him catch his breath again after that outburst. “You know you don’t have to be in love with your soulmate right?”

The words make Steve nearly spit out his coffee. “Of course you do. That’s the whole point of soulmates.”

Tony looks terribly, terribly sad for a brief second, a look that disturbs Steve, and then he proceeds to shatter Steve’s entire perspective. “People used to think that. And for the most part, it’s still true. Soulmates tend to fall in love. Whether that’s legitimate across the board or because we spent so many centuries buying into the bullshit is hard to tell. But not everyone. Aromantics don’t fall in love with their soulmate.”

“Like Nat?” asks Steve.

“Yeah,” agrees Tony. “I know she’s got a soulmate out there, but Natasha’s aro, she’s not going to fall in love.”

“She could,” argues Steve. “When she meets her soulmate.”

“No she can’t,” returns Tony. “That’s the whole fucking point. It doesn’t matter what magical person is out there for her, Nat’s never going to fall romantically in love with someone. But soulmates are so much more than that. It’s the person who gets you, who always has your back, even when you’re doing something stupid, and they’re right there with you doing it too. Though they’ll lecture a lot.”

“I can’t picture Pepper doing half the stupid things you do.”

“Okay, first, rude. Experimentation is not stupid. It just sometimes yields less fortunate results. And second, Pepper’s not my soulmate.”

“Pepper’s not…?” stammers Steve.

Tony shakes his head. “Rhodey’s my soulmate. But we knew very early on that we weren’t in love and we’re never going to be. We have the loves of our lives and we have each other.”

Steve lets that sink in for a minute. “So this new soulmate doesn’t have to be like Bucky?”

“I don’t think anyone can be like Bucky,” says Tony gently. “Not the way you talk about him. But they could still be worth having in your life.”

~

Steve returns to DC the next morning. There’s nothing much happening at the Avengers Tower anyway. Tony’s been rather subdued since he took the reactor core out of his chest, though its in a good way.

Jane’s joined Bruce in the lab to explore some weird mumbo jumbo science thing that when explained, puts Steve to sleep.

Clint’s off at Asgard with Thor. Apparently Lady Sif was recently on earth and had some sort of news for Thor that Clint had strong feelings about. They’ve been gone a few weeks now.

Steve is hoping for quiet, a few stray missions, but nothing crazy while he counts down the days to meeting his new soulmate, this potential friend, if Steve can bring himself to accept the idea.

He didn’t really expect the world to stay calm.

But then again, he didn’t expect Hydra to rear a long-hibernating head either.

He and Sam and Natasha are suddenly running and fighting for their lives, trying to scramble together a plan when the Winter Soldier literally falls from the sky. And then Steve’s world slows down. They say your life flashes before your eyes in the end. This was like precise photographs, highlighting a sudden instant in the midst of the fight.

~

He leaps to save Nat, distracting the Winter Soldier, and as he flies backwards, ducking behind his shield to fend off the gunfire burst, Steve catches a glimpse of his arm.

0:00 with a glow of red and blue.

~

Hand to hand combat. Throw a punch. Dodge that stab. Twist, punch, duck, kick. The motions are effortless, he’s always known how to fight dirty.

The Winter Soldier’s hand is around his neck and all Steve can think is yes, yes, yes.

His soulmate is a machine. A weapon forged by Hydra, a vicious assassin. This is better than the idea that Tony posited, of a dear friend.

Steve is allowed to hate his enemy.

The fire of hatred and anger, that the universe would have the audacity to send this beast to replace his Bucky, fuels Steve, letting him shove the Winter Soldier away.

~

His distraction allows the Winter Soldier the advantage for a moment.

A quick flip, twist free, his hand yanking away the mask.

Let him see the face of his new soulmate. It’s finally over.

Steve breathes.

~

His breath is gone.

The city ceases to exist.

All is quiet.

Bucky.

“Bucky?” he says, sure he’s dreaming. Perhaps the Winter Soldier already killed him.

“Who is Bucky?” comes the reply, lost, unsure, angry.

The figurative mask shutters back down, flickering as it does. Bucky fires.

Steve raises his shield unnecessarily.

Bucky wasn’t aiming at him. Never would.

The noise of the city, of Natasha and Sam, of a world he’d forgotten about for a moment comes back into focus. Steve stands still, looking towards the space so newly vacated, and is overjoyed at the one thought running through his mind.

Bucky.


End file.
